Five Things to Hate
by ZeDancingHobbit
Summary: There are five things Mal Fallon really, really can't stand. But she's the only one who he can lean on. Angst-fest. Maltara (is that really a surprise?) One-shot. Complete.


**Hey all! I know you might be mad at me for not updating What's Not to Love About Siblings, but fear not! A new chapter is coming up as soon as I post this thing. I was on a trip to Kentucky this week (worst vacation of my life, btw) and this little thing popped up. I seem to be better at writing angst than humor haha. Oh wells. There's some hope left... O.o Anyhoo, I hope you enjoy.**

He hates it when they look at him.

Those prying, pitying, sad looks haunt him wherever he goes. They slip in between the cracks in his home. They soak through the papers and reports he reads, morphing the ink into words resembling, "Weak. Failure. Fool". Eyes follow him in the precinct, in the mall, in the street. He can't find any privacy anywhere. Lately, aside from work, he's started staying at home, more and more. He can't stand those eyes watching him.

They make his skin crawl and his stomach swish. Anger rises up, tinting his cheeks the slightest shade of red, and only her cooling hand can quell it. Softly, gently, she calmly placed it on his shoulder and whispers soothing words to calm the storm. Still, he hates it when they watch him.

_Carter's stare is hard, yet jumpy. His eyes dart all around the room, yet his finger remains steady on the gun pointed at Mal. Getting desperate. Mal grits his teeth slightly, seemingly cool and confidant, yet staying on the lookout for his accomplice, who Natara is chasing. No telling where he could be. _

He hates it when they touch him.

Always, always, hands are touching his shoulders, back, head, hands, everywhere, except his legs, of course. They try to be comforting hands, he supposes, but he still hates them. Soft flesh, warm, clammy, the touches linger long after their owners are far away, just reminders that he can't reach them, half the time. He tries to keep himself from swatting them away, but he can't unless she's there. He's gotten in countless screaming matches with his father and Cynthia, all the while their pitying states following him. Why can't they just keep their damn hands to themselves? And their stupid skin always manages to make contact with him.

He also hates it when people touch his things. Those he's taking care of, those he's carrying, those he's setting down, those around him. People pick them up and, with another of those sweet smiles, tell him, "I've got it. No, it's fine. Really. You shouldn't have to carry anything. You know, because of..." Then they dissolve off into embarrassed silence, and the most he can do is nod his head and let them carry the damn things. It's not like he can prevent them. And that's part of what irks him the most. It's not that bad...sure, he's lost some of his former strength and mobility, but surely he doesn't look so weak as that...does he? So of course, he hates it when they touch.

_A can falls over, footsteps run, but he can't take his eyes from Carter, knowing he'll shoot. A thought flits across his mind-if they shoot, they just might get blown up. Strangely, he's calm. He chalks it up to adrenaline. _

_"Carter," he states, "this will all be-" _

_But the footsteps run closer, and there's a 'click', and suddenly Natara screams, "Mal, look out!"-and he tries to run, he really does, but suddenly there's a searing pain in his back- _

_Spongy legs-_

_Hard concrete, smacking his head-_

_Something warm and wet and sticky- _

_Hands pulling him, applying pressure-_

_Burning-_

_Something else wet, but not coppery...a puddle of gasoline-_

_"Hold on, Mal"-_

_A darkness so thick he can almost touch it. _

He hates the smells.

He hates the smell of blood. When she comes in, covered in it from the newest case, flashes him a smile, and tells him jubilantly, "Got 'im!", while he's sitting at a desk doing paperwork, he pretends to grin and say "That's my girl" and be happy for her, but on the inside he's seething. One reason being someone tried to hurt his girl. Two, he can't be out with her, chasing down the bad guys and spilling that blood right alongside her. And she knows. But she knows he would hate it more if it were HER blood, instead, so she tries to regale him with stories of the chase and asking why he would've done. It helps, a bit, but he still can't stand the smell of blood.

He also can't stand the smell of casseroles. Bacon, broccoli, green bean, pea, sweet potato, every single kind of imaginable casserole has passed through his doorway and been at least partially consumed. They sicken him now. Pity pies, he refers to them in his mind. Signs that people feel sorry for him. Don't want him to cook or do extra work, he supposes. Well, it's not like he can do much anyways. He tries to work them off sometimes by doing pull-ups, but it gets really tiring after a while and he lets off. Even the distant waff of them makes him want to puke.

He hates the smell of gas. That's where it all started, at a gas station. He wonders they didn't blow up the place. As a result of that whole debacle, the smallest scent of gas sends him on a whirlwind of nightmares, of terror and bad memories. He has to shake his head clear and focus on something else. Most of the time, he chooses her perfume. It has a habit of helping. Even so, he hates the smells.

_He wakes up to a hospital. It smells of medicine and cleanliness and death. Nat is there, and she smiles at him and hugs him, but there's a pain in her eyes when she has to tell him. _

_Something about a damaged nerve-_

_Pinched or something-_

_Irreparable- _

_Spinal cord-_

_Never walk again (he never was all that good at that medical jargon). _

_He avoids hospitals like the plague, now (except for those damn check-ups). _

He also hates the taste of those things.

He can still taste the blood in his mouth, sometimes. Thick, coppery, sickly sweet. In dreams, it wells up his throat and chokes him until he's screaming for mercy and jerks awake, coughing on his own saliva and tears. He can see it seeping onto the floor when he closes his eyes, and there's always that unmistakable tang accompanying it. Once, unthinkingly, he sucked on a paper cut from his finger, and had to snatch a trash can in order to narrowly miss vomiting all over his desk. The chief sent him home after that.

He can't stand casseroles anymore, either. Especially green bean and sweet potato. Once, he threw them off his balcony, the yowling of two alley cats getting to his worse side. They shut up then. He's given them away and thrown them out, but he still can't eat them. They're poison now. That of goodwill, but sometimes he wishes the goodwill didn't taste of bacon or peas.

And gas. He doesn't actually put gas in cars anymore, but sometimes he'll be traveling past a gas station and get it in his mouth. There is literal poison. That can't be good for anyone, right? And he uses that to stay away from them as much as he can. Never mind the nightmares he gets. Never mind the half-a-second flashbacks. That's a good enough reason for him.

_They feed him mashed potatoes and soup and ice cream in the hospital for the few days while he recovers (as much as he can, at least). They're a bit watery and sometimes lukewarm, but he shovels them down and counts the minutes until he can leave this place. _

_They give him a wheelchair. It's big and clunky and, depending on how he rolls it, loud. Soon enough, he's wheeling around. In all honesty, if he wasn't regaled to it, he would've thought it fun. But now, it leaves a bitter taste in his mouth, that of failure and weakness and the end of everything. _

He hates it when they talk...or don't.

He'll enter a room and it will go quiet before uneasy conversation starts up again. Sometimes, he'll cross by a talking group and hear words like "Gun" "Never again" "Sorry for him". Sorry. That's the word he hates hearing the most. He doesn't want their pity. He wants to help. He wants to do something, not just sit around and hear people use him for the daily gossip. How dare they speak about him? Weren't they his friends? Coworkers? Didn't they know how much it hurt?

He wishes they'd talk about something interesting. Something involving him. Something that he could laugh at, or sympathize with, or give advice for. Not this crap.

He loathes the sound of guns. Shooting, banging, pow pow pow. He tried to shoot, once, but it made his eardrums hurt and he couldn't aim right, so he gave up. Sometimes he hears them practicing, and he hurries away. Horrible sounds. That's the cause of this whole mess.

He also hates the sound of metal. Metal on metal, squeak, squeak, accompanying him wherever he goes, except for bed, and deep inside him is the sick feeling that it'll be there in the morning. Sometimes, if he moves it right, it makes this high pitched squealing noise that sounds exactly like that of nails on chalkboard, filing at his ears. It's awful. And it speaks of awful things.

_He's been assigned paperwork from now on, seeing as he can't go out in the field anymore. He does a lot of research on the computer and makes a lot of phone calls. Nat is assigned another partner, which hurts most of all, but it's a girl who is happily engaged to some architect and Nat always finds him whenever she can. And, Amy is slowly showing him how to hack into a computer (he plans on attempting Kai's sometime soon) and how to trace calls, computer signals, etc. He thinks it might, just might not be too bad (Though Kai might drive him insane). _

The only one he can bear to let look at him is her. She has calming eyes, those that soothe him when they're turned upon him. They help him close his own, breathe deeply, and look upon others with a somewhat less degree of malice.

The only one who can touch him without him stiffening is her. Her hands are soft, but not clammy, and they know just where to put themselves when he wants to punch something. She rubs his knuckles gently, or brings them up to her mouth and places her lips carefully upon them. And, well. He really doesn't mind it when she touches her lips to his. That he doesn't mind at all.

He loves her scent. It's feminine, but not overpowering. It smells like flowers and, when he's in a bit of a whimsical mood, he imagines its the smell of sunshine and a field and a picnic. He's come to know exactly when she's nearing by the strength of the subtle, perfect smell.

She also makes him great smelling food. Weird, exotic dishes, ones he's never heard of. They make his nose run and his mouth burn, they're so spicy, but when he guzzles down water she just laughs and tells him this is mild. They chase away the casserole smell and briing about the aroma of new things, of change. Sometimes, when she's cooking, she'll let him stir something up or chop vegetable or something. Even when onions make his eyes stream or his hands are permanently scented cinnamon, he enjoys it. It makes everything seem better.

She has a perfect taste, better than anything else. Her lips faintly taste of the strawberry Chapstick she uses to keep them so perfectly soft, and when he kisses her there's a faint tinge of those spices and exotic things on her tongue. They make his head pop and his brain swirl, sometimes paralyzing him until he can't talk. Her food is great, sure, but give him her lips over dishes any day.

Her voice is soothing, calming. When he feels like screaming at everyone to just shut up or talk about something worthwhile and stop talking about him, she'll lean down and whisper in his ear little jokes, or sarcastic comments, or how amazing he is. Something that never fails to wash away the anger waves and make him smile, even if it's the tiniest upturning of the corners of his mouth. Sometimes he'll just pull him towards him and have her talk about anything. Everything. Cases, parades, movies, museums, anything. He doesn't like to go out any more than he has to, now, so her witty observations are a welcome peek into what the rest of the world is doing. She is the one who gently lays a finger on his shoulder when he stiffens, suddenly alert at the sound of a gun. A welcome diversion from the squeaks of metal. A megaphone to penetrate all the mocking voices in his head.

She is his anchor in the real world.

_It still sucks. He still hates this damn wheelchair. He still hates not being able to walk or run or jump. He still hates paperwork. He hates not being in the field. But, with Natara and the whole precinct backing him, he might be able to tackle this hurdle. _

_Well, in the metaphorical sense, of course. Not literally. _

_But maybe, just maybe...it'll be okay._

-finis

**Please review for me! It would make me mucho happeh :)**


End file.
